He did
not shelter himself, as Napoleon once wished to do, under the draperies
of a constitutional king. Wesley was satisfied in his own mind that he
knew better than any other man how to guide his movements and govern
his followers, and he told people that he knew it, and acted
accordingly. The members of his conference, or what we have called his
cabinet, were only like Clive's council of war; Wesley listened to
their advice and their arguments, but acted according to his own
judgment all the same. Late in his career it was charged against him
that he was trying to turn himself into a sort of Methodist pope. He
asked for some explanation of this, and was told that he had invested
himself with arbitrary power. His answer was simple and
straightforward. "If by arbitrary power you mean a power which I
exercise singly, without any colleagues therein, this is certainly
true; but I see no hurt in it." All the actions of his life show this
complete faith in himself where the business of his mission was
concerned. He was dogmatic, masterful, overbearing, very often far
from amiable, sometimes all but unendurable, to those around him. But
if he had not had these peculiar qualities or defects he would not have
been the man that he was; he would not have been able to bear the
charge of such a task at such a {143} time. It is probable that
Hannibal did not cut through the Alps with vinegar; it is certain that
he could not have pierced his way with honey.

[Sidenote: 1738--Religion out of fashion]

Nothing can better show than the rise and progress of the great
Methodist movement how vast is the difference between a people and what
is commonly called society. In society everywhere throughout England,
in the great provincial cities as well as in the capital, religion
seemed to have completely gone out of fashion. The Court cared nothing
about it. The King had no real belief in his heart; he had as little
faith in Divine guidance as he had in the honor of man or the chastity
of woman. The Queen's devotional exercises were nothing but a mere
performance carried on sometimes through a half-opened door, the
attendant minister on one side of the door and the gossiping,
chattering ladies on the other. The leading statesmen of the age were
avowedly indifferent or professedly unbelieving. Bolingbroke was a
preacher of unbelief. Walpole never seems to have cared to turn his
thoughts for one moment to anything higher tha